of Mount Saint Helena, comes to a fine bulk and ranks with forest
trees--but the pines look down upon the rest for underwood. As
Mount Saint Helena among her foothills, so these dark giants out-
top their fellow-vegetables. Alas! if they had left the redwoods,
the pines, in turn, would have been dwarfed. But the redwoods,
fallen from their high estate, are serving as family bedsteads, or
yet more humbly as field fences, along all Napa Valley.

A rough smack of resin was in the air, and a crystal mountain
purity. It came pouring over these green slopes by the oceanful.
The woods sang aloud, and gave largely of their healthful breath.
Gladness seemed to inhabit these upper zones, and we had left
indifference behind us in the valley. "I to the hills lift mine
eyes!" There are days in a life when thus to climb out of the
lowlands, seems like scaling heaven.

As we continued to ascend, the wind fell upon us with increasing
strength. It was a wonder how the two stout horses managed to pull
us up that steep incline and still face the athletic opposition of
the wind, or how their great eyes were able to endure the dust.
Ten minutes after we went by, a tree fell, blocking the road; and
even before us leaves were thickly strewn, and boughs had fallen,
large enough to make the passage difficult. But now we were hard
by the summit. The road crosses the ridge, just in the nick that
Kelmar showed me from below, and then, without pause, plunges down
a deep, thickly wooded glen on the farther side. At the highest
point a trail strikes up the main hill to the leftward; and that
leads to Silverado. A hundred yards beyond, and in a kind of elbow
of the glen, stands the Toll House Hotel. We came up the one side,
were caught upon the summit by the whole weight of the wind as it